TDA RESEARCH, INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: DHA17-006

Description

Commercial off the shelf (COTS) sequential samplers that pull contaminated air through thermal desorption (TD) sample tubes have many limitations that hinder their use in measuring VOCs in air. Current sequential samplers can only sample VOCs using one flow rate, for each of the tubes during the sampling session within each bank. The minimum flow time for each tube cannot go below one minute, and the sequential sampler must be manually started by either pressing a button or setting a timer. There is no ability to remotely start a sampling sequence, and once the sampling sequence starts, it cannot be stopped. Finally, there is no ability to add additional tubes during the sampling to extend the sampling sequence without having to start over. In this SBIR Project TDA Research proposes to develop an intelligent thermal desorption (TD) tube sequential sampler that can be used for VOC sampling in the workspace, environment, and aircraft cockpit. It will collect VOC samples that are time splices of an entire sampling event, and the sample initiation, flow rate and duration are fully user programmable.